Athletic flooring must be carefully designed to permit maximal athletic performance while limiting injury and fatigue. Both goals have traditionally been addressed by constructing sprung floors that rebound elastically from impacts, cushioning athletes' bodies when running and jumping and subtly enhancing their performance by providing a slight recoil force. The elastic nature of sprung floors, however, creates an additional problem, because of the tendency of elastic objects to vibrate harmonically. The vibration can make the floor slightly harder to navigate and can cause fatigue and injury to athletes in its own right. Typical sprung floors thus have pads or blankets of damping material installed to limit the floors' elastic response and stop vibration. These damping pads and blankets must generally be thick to be effective, necessitating thick subfloors and increasing expense of construction. Furthermore, floors incorporating the pads cannot respond optimally to all conditions: the balance between elasticity and damping is crucial; too much elasticity increases vibration and fatigue, while too little increases injury. This balance is upset to one extreme or the other when exposed to higher and lower velocity impacts in the course of athletic endeavors.
In one aspect, a flooring system includes at least two discrete layers. The at least two discrete layers include at least a first discrete layer comprising variably responsive elastic subfloor. The at least a first discrete layer includes at least first sublayer having area elastic properties and at least a second sublayer, wherein at least a portion of the at least a second sublayer includes a first material displaying dilatant properties. The at least two discrete layers include at least a second discrete layer comprising a wear layer disposed on top of the at least a first discrete layer.
These and other aspects and features of non-limiting embodiments of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific non-limiting embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.